Turning an old, funky house into home

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Things They Are A Changin’

Moving in to a 20-year-old house comes with some inherent challenges. Appliances in that age range may have some quirks, some issues, or simply just not work. With other problems with the exterior of our house, appliance were on the back burner until recently.

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Last month, I decided to defrost something for dinner. Not thinking too clearly, I opened the drawer freezer on the bottom of our Sub-Zero and the single huge refrigerator door. As I was leaning over to get our dinner out, the fridge started tipping. The grill hit me in the head, I don’t know what got me on the arm and back. I just remember bracing against the island and calling for help. I was thankful my youngest was at home. She’d heard the clanging and thought I’d dropped something. She came to laugh and ended up running to help.

My sweet baby got me an ice pack and offered to watch American Idol with me until my nerves were settled. With a call to Sub-Zero, they scheduled a visit from Professional Appliance Technicians, Inc. to come out and make sure my fridge was stable. The technician was knowledgeable and efficient. He even told me Sub-Zeros can last up to 40 years. I thought we were good to go for a while.

Then my oldest invited a friend for dinner. Invite someone to dinner and invite trouble. My oven stopped working some time before the timer went off. Suddenly, new appliances became a priority. Unfortunately, they came with their own set of concerns. You see, the old oven wasn’t just old and out of commission. It was little; I mean real little.

According to the UPS guy, the former owners were both busy professionals. The wife was a dentist. I don’t know, but I’m guessing she didn’t do a lot of cooking with that 24-inch oven.

When we celebrated Christmas here with my family, I removed all the racks in the oven, but one, and the ham still touched the roof of that oven. With an active family of four, we need something bigger.

Getting a larger oven, meant getting a larger cabinet to house that oven. Since we were getting a new oven, we decided to replace that ugly microwave with the glazing on the door all worn off. While we were in the appliance store, we decided a new dishwasher that didn’t back up into the garbage disposal, randomly stop mid-cycle, and make a heck-of-a-lot of noise might be a worthwhile investment. A few weeks ago, we set it all in motion. This is the week it’s coming together.

We had the cabinet maker and our carpenter come out to check out the job. They took one of our existing cabinet doors to match the style and paint. So we’ve been looking at this for the last few weeks.

Before the cabinet arrived today, my mister got the space all cleared.

Today, we had a few glitches. The tile floor slants up under the cabinet, so it took some work to get it into place. The tile floor also was cut out around the base of the cabinet. This was hidden by the molding when they came out to bid the job, but a new board in the toe kick area hides the missing tile. Walls on older homes are seldom square, so a little caulking and some paint should leave it looking great.

Now, just two more days and the new appliances arrive. I’ll get to bake in my oven once more. I’m so looking forward to having a working kitchen. OK, to be fair, I do have a working cook top downstairs and a full kitchen upstairs in the girls’ wing of the house. They have an oven, but no food. That means trips down the hall, up the stairs and around the corner to get dinner, cookies and all those fun things in the oven. I prefer not to wander halls and stairs with steaming hot food. It’s doable but not optimal… Can’t wait to be back to normal.

5 thoughts on “Things They Are A Changin’”

There’s a two-bedroom apartment over the garage with a full kitchen and a stacked W/D. The oldest has a killer view of the valley, and the little one has a bedroom the size of our old living room. We pretty much hang out on the main level, except when workmen come and dog need company to keep from howling.

You had me just howling! Our house in Silver Lake came with no sewer hook-up, only 1 our of 4 bathrooms hooked up to the hole we dug until the back hoe came to dig the sewer line, the following week. Our kitchen fridge stopped, and when we brought the old one in from the garage, it stopped three days later. All I can say is, it sure makes for fun stories!! At least it wasn’t over 100 degrees,with no air conditioning (because of all the dust) like D’Laynes was when they had their entire main floor, floor put in. We will all have to compare stories this summer. MeeMee

I’m thankful we haven’t had the heat of Dallas. We did have four days without power before we knew how to use the generator. On a few sunny days, the temp outside was in the 50’s and the temp inside was in the 90’s. We’ll have it all figured out before you visit this summer. Maybe the industrial fans will do the trick.